Today I'm signing the law, the Chips, and Science Act.
A once-in-a-generation investment in America itself.
Today I'm ordering my administration to be laser-focused on the guardrails that will
protect taxpayers' dollars.
This includes requirements that companies building these semiconductor facilities
pay Davis Baking prevailing wage.
>> [APPLAUSE] >> To ensure the tens of thousands
of new construction jobs are union jobs.
>> As is evidenced by the video you just watched.
Joe Biden promised when he signed the $52 billion Chips Act that
jobs would be created for America well-paying jobs, union jobs.
But is that actually coming to fruition?
Because according to a new report, one of the potential beneficiaries of
the Chips Act, which is a Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company,
TSMC for short they're planning to not use American workers or unionized workers.
They're planning on importing workers from around the world
in order to build their massive facility in Arizona.
Now, a recent investigation by The American Prospect has revealed that said
facility has been plagued with safety violations and alleged wage theft.
We'll get to those details in just a moment.
There is a lot to cover.
So let's start with how this company, this Taiwanese company TSMC,
is doing what's called internal offshoring,
aka bringing workers into the United States in order to build
their semiconductor factory and chips in America.
Here's what three anonymous chip supply chain executives told Nikkei Asia.
So TSMC and its suppliers are in talks with the US government to assist with
the application process for non-immigrant visas in a bid to dispatch
more than 500 experienced workers as early as July to expedite the construction of
clean room facilities and the installation of pipes and other equipment.
Now, according to one of those executives, American workers don't have
enough experience building semiconductor manufacturing factories,
which has led to slowdowns for this company's Arizona facility.
That is what they're alleging.
And according to a report by The New York Times, insiders at this company have
the nerve to insult American workers even while the company exploits them.
So some TSMC engineers said that they were concerned about how
the Arizona factory would blend American and Taiwanese employees.
In Taiwan, engineers work long hours and weekend shifts,
joking that they sell liver to work for the chip manufacturer, they said.
Such sacrifices may be less appealing to employees in the United States, they said.
One former TSMC engineer had this to say, quote,
the most difficult thing about wafer manufacturing is not technology.
The most difficult thing is personnel management.
Americans are the worst at this because Americans are the most
difficult to manage.
And in response to the news, the president of the Arizona Building Trades Council
told The American Prospect simply, it's a effing disgrace.
Cenk.
>> Yeah, so mixed thoughts on this one.
What do I mean?
First, hungry people are generally going to work harder than non-hungry people.
That's just a fact of life, right?
But then these companies that are based abroad kinda brag about it.
They're like, our citizens are in much worse shape, so
they've gotta even sell their liver to be able to work for us.
Ha ha that's so funny.
And then they're gonna work their lives away for us because they're hungry and
their family is hungry and they need to do something about it.
You guys aren't as hungry.
Can you believe you just wanna work a normal job and get paid a normal salary?
We hate you.
Well, okay, I mean, there's a little bit of truth to the fact that, yes,
like I said, hungrier people sometimes work harder.
But I don't think that's a thing you should brag about.
That's point one.
Point two is, as usual, what I can't stand is the political lies.
So here somebody in Super Chat wrote in, or one of our members
wrote in saying that Biden is the gaslighter in chief, okay?
And there's a lot of truth to that.
So he's like, my God, we're gonna do the semiconductors here in America.
Well, first of all, that sounds good.
That's a good start.
You do wanna them made in the USA.
There's a good reason why they need to be made in the USA, okay?
And it's good politics.
So lots of wins there, right?
But then he says, like, don't worry, we get the jobs.
We got the jobs, right?
And it's guaranteed this, that and other thing.
No, it's not.
So intel fired thousands of people right after the Chips Act passed.
They got $52 billion of our money, our money, my money.
Your money went to billionaires.
The CEO of Intel made $179 million that year alone, but
he fired thousands of people.
Did Biden put in protections?
No, he didn't put in protections.
>> That was in the initial writing of the legislation.
But wow, what a shocker that provision didn't make it.
But that's the thing.
Biden is aware of that.
So when he is selling this legislation to the American people in a speech
which you saw in the video we showed you in the very beginning of the story.
Why does he feel the need to lie to us about how this
is gonna create all these wonderful, well-paying union jobs?
Especially when he knows full well that there are no
safeguards in place in the final law that ensures
that these factories are employed by American workers.
That's the part that really bothers me.
Just like the flat-out lie to sell this to the American people.
And look, I support manufacturing chips here in the United States.
I think that the Coronavirus Pandemic showed the fragility of our supply chains.
Relying on every other country to produce what we need here in
the United States puts us in a vulnerable situation.
So just the act of ensuring that we are manufacturing chips
here in the United States is great.
I would also like to see some safeguards to prevent these corporations from
selling the chips to other countries without prioritizing us here in the US.
So that's another issue that I have with the outcome of that legislation.
But, Cenk, why don't you jump in?
>> Yeah, so, look, we try really hard to be fair on the show.
So when Trump bullied an American corporation into not outsourcing keeping
jobs here, the left were like,
how could you possibly bully a poor company like that?
And I remember doing a video, and it was at an airport.
And I don't know why that sticks in my mind, but I was like, no,
the president should bully the companies to keep the jobs here.
He's supposed to look out for us.
I'm like, this is a rare thing that Trump did right.
So we're honest about that.
And by the way, you know what happened afterwards?
As usual, Trump was full of crap.
And later, that same company fired thousands of people.
And Trump didn't do anything about it.
He was just huffing and puffing.
It was just marketing, right?
At least it's smart marketing.
But he was a liar, and he lied about that.
He didn't do a goddamn thing, and they outsourced jobs.
Now we go to Biden.
And by the way, the left was super mad about that.
They were mad about the so called bullying, and then they were mad that
thousands of people lost their jobs, and Trump was a liar.
So now Biden does something very similar.
He goes, I'm gonna keep the jobs here and the semiconductor,
I'm gonna funnel the $52 billion to my corporate donors.
I mean, the semiconductor industry, because of you,
I'm gonna keep the jobs here.
Bring them in from Taiwan.
Bring them in. Yes, and fire our guys.
No problem at all.
Go, go ahead, ahead.
>> And not just from Taiwan.
I wanna be clear. All over the world,
they're bringing in workers from all over the world instead of using American labor.
>> Yeah, and then so now the right-wing goes, Biden's so terrible.
And the left-wing goes, no, when things are inconvenient, you just ignore them.
So when Biden's a liar, we say, that's not the same as Trump.
He's a good liar.
He's got a good heart.
He's from Scranton.
It takes Amtrak all the time.
I don't give a goddamn.
He's a liar.
>> So let's talk a little bit about what these facilities are like.
Now, the company alleges that.
No, look, when it comes to building the facilities,
when it comes to building the factories, yes,
we're bringing in some workers from other countries, but this is temporary.
They'll leave after that, as if that's supposed to make us all feel better about
the fact that they're refusing to use American labor for this.
But nonetheless, there's an excerpt from a report,
an investigative report that was done by Lee Harris about these facilities.
TSMC's facility, which was published before the News of the additional
500 plus workforce, and that they're bringing in from other countries.
And this is what Lee Harris reports in the American Prospect.
Quote, I went to Phoenix to interview construction workers on site and
found that while some union contractors have secured jobs at Fab 21,
most workers at the site are nonunion.
Many are international migrants and out-of-state workers.
So even prior to this latest report breaking the one that we're sharing with
you, they were already leaning heavily on migrant workers who would come here,
do the work, and potentially be sent out of the country after their jobs are done.
Specifically, Harris claims that only about 3000 of the 12,000
employees at the facility are American union workers.
TSMC has partnered with a Taiwanese company called Proper S-Y-S,
or ProperSys to help build the facility.
One worker posed as a recruiter and
ended up recording their conversation with an office administrator.
With this third party, the worker asked ProperSys employee or the ProperSys
employee whether his relatives with work visas could work on the site.
Quote, most of our guys are women from Taiwan, so
we're very familiar with work visas.
The administrator replied,
if one of my people if one of his work visas is being processed,
would he still be able to apply and get it while the work visa is coming in?
The worker pressed.
Yeah, the administrator said, like,
we have a couple of people and it all is by situation.
But we do have some people who are currently on student visas here and,
you know, they've already been hired for
a job when they graduate and get their work visa, so upcoming visas as well.
So not only have they been leaning on migrant workers, not only are they
currently leaning on migrant workers with this latest report of 500 plus people
being brought in from out of the country, but they intend to continue at least
there's some indication they intend to continue to do so moving forward.
>> All right, so two more things.
One is I don't want people to get the wrong idea.
So do you have to pay a little bit higher wages in America than you do in some of
these other countries?
Yes, you do, okay?
On the other hand, is it the idea that American workers are lazy?
Is that true? No, that is not at all true.
I've seen the graphs.
So this is not anecdotal or this is not my opinion.
This is just facts.
The productivity in America is sky high, and it's been sky high for
decade after decade.
And part of the reason productivity is so
high is because now a lot of us have to take two jobs.
The husband and the wife have to work, and the productivity keeps piling on.
So the idea that Americans are lazy is totally and utterly not true, okay?
But they just keep saying it and saying it for their own economic interest.
The second thing is that what I was gonna get to anyway, but
one of our members asked a great question.
That's a perfect lead into it.
Rainbow Bright wrote in, I love how they say creating union jobs while allowing
union busting and never passing union protections into law.
Am I missing something?
Yes, let me tell you why you're seeing that phenomena.
Because unions also give campaign donations and primarily to Democrats.
So that's why Democrats like Joe Biden are like,
we're gonna create the union jobs on union, right?
But wait, they never actually do any protections as-
>> That's not fair.
No, the NLRB under the Biden administration, relatively speaking,
has been good.
>> So for Biden and the NLRB, that is correct.
And we've given you some of the upsides and downsides.
When I say they never do the things,
I'm referring to what Rainbow Bright mentioned, which is passing laws.
So every time a Democrat comes in, Obama, Biden,
Clinton, etc, we're gonna pass the pro act.
We're gonna make sure that these union protections are there.
And they never, ever pass them.
They don't even come close.
And most of the time, they don't even propose it.
Why?
Cuz they get a lot more campaign donations from corporations.
So they go, hey, thank you very much, suckers at the union.
And for your 20%, those corporations are giving me 80%.
Even for Democrats.
I'm gonna do exactly what they want.
But you guys, I'll say some of the stuff that I do for them will create jobs for
you guys.
I'm not gonna give you any protections.
I'm not gonna pass any bills.
But the best anyone's done among the Democrats, to be fair to Biden is have
a strong NLRB like, Biden does that's, like, at this much.
But he's like, I gave you crumbs.
What else do you want, right?
Pass legislation.
I'm gonna pass legislation and
ruin the idea that I can get more corporate contributions.
So hence, I'll say I pass this bill.
I gave $50 billion to my donors, but you guys will get more jobs.
Later you find out you didn't.
That's because the other guys bribed Biden and the Democrats and
all of the Republicans more than you bribed them.
Welcome to American politics.
>> And the allergic reaction to potentially hiring actual American
unionized workers has a lot to do with what corporations love about
deregulation here in the United States.
And it's being able to cut corners with impunity.
So, for instance, if you look at what the injuries look like for
employees over at TSMC, well, not so great.
So Harris's investigation found that the TMC factory suffers from
widespread safety issues.
Luke Kasper, a representative of Smart, the sheet metal workers union,
said the following it's easily the most unsafe site I've ever walked on.
I've been in the trade 17 years.
Everyone that works at the hall and out there on site agrees it's by far
the most dangerous, unorganized job site they saw.
And so, for instance, one worker in his 60s allegedly fell off a ladder and
ended up breaking up both of his legs.
And there are other examples.
Coworkers have fallen from great heights through scaffolding and flooring.
And all of this you should keep in mind as this particular
company applies for certain tax credits.
I wanna go to graphic nine here.
TSMC is angling to receive tax credits and
grants from recent federal legislation totaling up to $15 billion.
And that's according to the Wall Street Journal.
>> No, look, that's such a great example of the crime that is American politics.
Because they say, look, guys, we gotta give the grants to these corporations,
not because they're bribing us.
No, their campaign contributions are coincidental, totally coincidental.
I mean, I took the money, and I use it for fame, wealth, status, etc.
But we're not doing it because we're doing it to create jobs.
And then they say, well, did you create jobs?
They go, well, no, I just gave it to more Taiwanese people, and
I made sure that nobody in the union could get it, and Americans can't get it, and
I brought in all these foreign workers, and I fired the Americans.
But wait, I thought you were giving them our money so
that we could at least have jobs, American jobs.
That was a lie, because you just took a bribe.
But do mainstream media journalists explain that to you?
No, they earnestly write they did it for the jobs, and they never come back and
go, sorry, our bad.
Trump and Biden were both liars.
Well, they say Trump's a liar, but not Biden.
Not Biden.
No, that $15 billion.
They had to give taxpayer money to a foreign corporation and
get no American jobs return.
They had to do it.
No, they didn't have to do it.
They get bribed on a regular basis, and they do it for their own greed.
Politicians are not to be respected, okay?
Politicians are usually the worst of us, not the best of us.
Don't believe mainstream media.